Résumé
Résumé de Le Cerveau suprême de Mars
Go deeper: the whole of Le Cerveau suprême de Mars
About 3 h 40 min to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
You will enjoy this if you love planetary adventure, daring escapes and clever schemes, or a hero who wins by wit, loyalty and love.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Picture a young captain in a shell hole in France, his legs torn away. He stretches his arms toward the red star Mars and prays. A click sounds like a snapped wire, and he stands on two sound legs, then feels himself pulled across space.
That captain is Ulysses Paxton, and this is The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a tale of Barsoom told in Paxton's own manuscript. It is a book of swords, flying ships and daring surgery, with a love story at its heart. You get a Mars where surgeons swap brains for pay, and one big question: is feeling a weakness or a strength?
Dans ce résumé
- 1A dying captain wakes on MarsFree
- 2The surgeon who trusts only self-interest
- 3Valla Dia wakes inside a stolen face
- 4A bargain struck on the operating table
- 5A master who plots against his assistant
- 6Three strange allies and a daring escape
- 7Toonol's night skies and a prince's palace
- 8The temples of Tur and the faith that forbids questions
- 9Inside the hollow god
- 10Reason against feeling, and how the tale is told
Point clé 1 sur 10
A dying captain wakes on Mars
The book opens with a letter from Ulysses Paxton to the author. In the trenches of France, a shell takes both his legs. As he lies dying, he prays to Mars, and his spirit crosses space.
He wakes on a red lawn inside a walled garden. Before him stands a withered old man in huge many-lensed spectacles, who reaches for a sword. Paxton leaps up, and Mars has so little gravity that he sails twenty feet through the air. The jump costs the old man his spectacles, and without them he is almost blind.
Then a naked red man with a club runs at the old man, murder in his face. Paxton grabs a fallen sword and drives his blade through the attacker. The old man leads him into a vast hall of tables, each holding a body, and moves an old woman's brain into a young girl's skull. Paxton is horrified.
A stranger on Mars survives first by courage, and then by learning what the place is.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Le Cerveau suprême de Mars
About 3 h 40 min to read.Questions about Le Cerveau suprême de Mars
What is The Master Mind of Mars about?
It follows Ulysses Paxton, a wounded American soldier drawn to Mars, who becomes assistant to a brain-swapping surgeon, Ras Thavas, and then sets out across the marshes to give a girl her stolen body back.
Who is Ras Thavas?
He is the old surgeon of Toonol, over a thousand years old, who runs a huge laboratory on an island. He transplants brains and organs, trusts only self-interest, and mocks what he calls sentiment.
Do you need to read the John Carter books first?
No. Paxton tells his own story and explains Barsoom as he goes, so the book stands on its own. John Carter appears near the close, and fans of the series will enjoy the cameo.
What is an equilibrimotor?
It is a belt filled with a Martian ray that balances gravity, with a small radium motor and a pair of wings. It lets a person float and steer, though Paxton finds it hard to master.
What is the main message of the book?
It shows that loyalty, kindness and keeping your word can outdo cold reason. It also mocks blind faith and blind science, and says that who you are lives in the person, not in the body.
Cite this edition
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. The Master Mind of Mars. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-master-mind-of-mars.
Burroughs, E. R. (2026). The master mind of Mars. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-master-mind-of-mars (Original work published 1927)
Burroughs, Edgar Rice. The Master Mind of Mars. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-master-mind-of-mars.
@book{burroughs2026master,
author = {Burroughs, Edgar Rice},
title = {The Master Mind of Mars},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-master-mind-of-mars},
note = {First published 1927}
}
